


Panic Room

by 48eyesand32teeth1sharptongue



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Aftermath of Possession, Gen, I don't know it's kind of in between recovery and retraumatization, Implied Flashbacks, Meditation, Some Fluff, Trans Sam Winchester, Trauma, Trauma Recovery, Violence warning is just because of Cage Subtext, excessive scenery used as metaphors, managing anxiety, one character from S13, sam centric, the major tags are just to cover my bases I don't really go intense in this one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-08
Updated: 2019-01-08
Packaged: 2019-10-06 12:00:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17344883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/48eyesand32teeth1sharptongue/pseuds/48eyesand32teeth1sharptongue
Summary: Sam takes a walk in the forest to clear his head.





	Panic Room

**Author's Note:**

  * For [UltimateFandomTrash](https://archiveofourown.org/users/UltimateFandomTrash/gifts).



> I was gonna write a giftfic based on your giftfic but I still am having issues writing, so I wrote this instead in the meantime!
> 
> Wishing you all the best! If you don't want this fic and want a different fic to be gifted for whatever reason, please let me know.
> 
> Also, I know you don't usually read fic, so no worries if you don't, I just wanted you to know you are important and I appreciate you. (And if you do decide to read, I tried to keep it short, both for clarity and ease.)
> 
> Fic title a song by Au/Ra.

Sam leaves home at 2 am, long after Jack had fallen asleep on the couch. Dean had passed out next to him, both of their heads lit by the warm glow the fireplace, round of cards having fallen out of their hands (along with Dean's third drink).

Sam had propped a pillow beneath Jack's head and pulled a blanket over Dean's snoring form, then scrubbed the split eggnog where it had fallen off the table from the wood floor before he pulled on his coat and boots with habitual efficiency.

He waved to Cas, who had temporarily wandered from the main room into the kitchen to try and appreciate a peanut butter and banana sandwich (with limited success).

On his way out, he tells Cas where to find him if he isn't back the usual time, the angel long since used to Sam's wandering sleep schedule and long hikes past the Bunker's walls.

Cas nods, giving Sam a serious but calm look before taking another bite and frowning back down at the sandwich.

Tinny, garbled music sounds distantly from the radio as Sam steps out, it's echo cut off the moment Sam shuts the door behind him.

\--

Sam walks for an hour, hood drawn over his head, the thin beam of his flashlight lightning the way. The rubber grip settles in his hand, loosely held between the soft wool of Sam's gloves.

In the dark, Sam's eyes adjust to the path spread out before him. Out of the corner of his eyes, the starlight basks the snow in a pale white glow, all too easily is drowned out by the unwavering signal set out before Sam's feet.

\--

When Sam reaches the clearing he prefers, he sits cross-legged on the nearest open patch of snow, then turns off his flashlight. This far out, there are no pinpricks of light from distant houses, hidden between carefully planted trees that keep the wind from upending every built-up part of the landscape.

The red, extra-long, and puffy jacket Jody had gifted up for him this winter season cushions him against the sticks and pine needles on the ground, but it insulates well enough that Sam doesn't have to worry about freezing or frostbite physically.

But cold still douses his lungs like a knife, and his breath uncoils from his mouth, huffing like smoke.

Sam tries not to think of red eyes folded beneath his eyelids, or of wings so bright and wide the phantom of them made his shoulder-blades ache.

But there's a reason he walks alone in the dead of night, in the cold, this night of all other nights-

Sam closes his eyes, counts to eight, and opens them again, blinking back up at the stars painting the sky with light. There's no moon hanging in the sky. Just darkness, but there is enough light that the shadows from the trees stretch and weave like skeletal arms over Sam's figure, reaching for something on the ground the shadows themselves will never touch.

Sam leans back on his elbows, gloves keeping his hands warm enough, hat pressing his hair close to his forehead.

Despite the cold, Sam still feels like he's running a fever. His teeth grit together, a muscle tensing in Sam's jaw, and all he can taste is blood when he accidentally bites the inside of his mouth too hard.

Sam heaves out a lungful of air, holding his breath-

Then tries again.

Ever since he'd said yes the first time, every second of cold had only reminded Sam of one thing.

But that would not be true forever. Not if Sam had anything to say about it.

Thankfully, it's quiet, all save for the wind making the arms of the trees swish and sway together.

That helps Sam focus. So did the hike. Smelling the earth, leaving footprints in the snow, hearing the way it crunched underneath his feet. 

Sometimes, the cold, the ice, would have sent him into a motionless state, unable to breath, only able to curl up with a small, shuddering helplessness that stole him away from the here and now.

On other days- worse days- he'd be spiraling into blind panic, trying to rip himself away from everything that tried to come into contact with him, trying to run and run and run and fight off the one thing he was so sure was heading closer, was catching up to him...

Cholesterol isn't the only reason he doesn't go for milkshakes when Dean goes through a drive-through, anymore.

But Sam brought himself out here for a reason.

And looking up to the twinkling canvas of the sky, there's no sense of waiting, of anticipation, of knee-jerk flinching. The tightness in his chest eases the more Sam blinks the snowflakes from his eyelashes and loosens his fists and smells open, barren dirt where it peeks out from the eddies and snowdrifts.

The snow glitters over the ground, pristine, except for where some mammal ( **a wolverine, maybe?** Sam isn't sure, but it's too small to be a coyote) has wandered through, a few broken branches snapped off past a few fallen pinecones.

Sam gathers his hands together and hugs his chest, then takes off his hat to feel the wind in his hair-

He does not press his thumb into his palm, this time.

And Sam thinks to himself: **I am here. I am free.**

The earth is solid under his feet. Predictable. Steady. Mundane, everyday dirt and dead grass and rocks and tree roots.

There was no price to be paid.

Nothing to take it all back, no keening song of an Archangel ready to creep closer and yank it all away with a snap of its fingers-

There are no bars, no walls, and no chiming on the wind except the distant toll of bells, not chains or shackles...

There is only the noise of a forest in the night, before the sun, full of eyes not of monsters, but of animals that keep their distance, that Sam doesn't see, spread out across swathes of space left by winter stealing the leaves away.

Past the edge of the clearing, a small plane flies across the sky, red light blinking in and out.

Sam counts his breaths with it, then puts his hat back on before he lays his head down, and counts all constellations he can find, tracing them with his fingers.

Eternity might have passed in the blink of an eye, but here, on earth...

Here, at home...

Sam is safe. And no yawning forever would swallow him below the ground, would steal the freedom he's won back...

He was never going back down. And no memory of laughter in his ears, or whispered promises, or flare of sparks, (or humming phantom sound, glorious and terrible, that Sam can still hear if he focuses too much on the cold, but that was not forever, that was not **here,** no longer-), was going to steal that away.

Time would keep going. One moment to another, minute to minute, second to second, with eternity passing downstairs, with no claws to drag Sam back down there or take his mind with it.

Today, Sam has his life.

And it will never be stolen again.

\--

It's a long time before Sam stands up, leg cramping stiffly from the effort, but Sam takes of his gloves as he does, and stuffs him in his pockets. He takes out a matchbox with steady hands, a routine gesture from all the long nights and hunts and things that go slinking around in the dark-

Sam lights it with the barest shake of his fingers. As Sam presses hit lit candle where it needs to go, the match swirls downwards, where Sam extinguishes it under his foot in the deepest, dampest snowdrift he can find, (just in case).

The wind takes the paper lantern Sam has lit and carries it up higher and higher, with it's biodegradable paper and the small note in Enochian Sam made are lifted beyond the world Sam can see. There's a promise, somewhere, there. Sam might not see the way out, not yet- but he knows it's there.

He knows, somewhere, there is peace to be found, waiting, somewhere in a future that will not come close to feeling like eternity.

His new years resolution flies up to the skies, to an earthly heaven not full of angels, but birds and planes and people heading on their journeys, to their homes, no matter whether they are heading somewhere new or somewhere old, on their journey.

Sam's promise to himself flies over all the things trying to keep him prisoner, slipping out of the reach of anyone who might ever try to drag Sam down again. Past his footprints left in the snow, past what has come before him.

After Sam can't see the lantern anymore, he bends down and picks the burnt end of matchstick back up.

He won't defile this place with his presence.

No.

All that will be left is a promise to himself, and receding footprints in the snow, following him back on his way home, to his family.

Back to where Sam can make his own choices, and keep building the life he's made for himself, one day and night at a time.

\--

On his way back, Sam thinks of fireworks, then reconsiders.

(He can work up to dealing with them next year, with Jack, and Dean and Cas. Maybe they will set them off for Independence Day, or maybe not. But so long as they are all there, they will make it through, together.)

\--

When Sam opens the Bunker door, there's three hugs and a peanut butter and banana sandwich waiting for him.

**Author's Note:**

> PSA don't actually go into the woods at night alone in the snow, the noises in the forest are actually darn creepy and hypothermia is real.
> 
> also I kinda went with a northeastern vibe for the setting but since they film in canada... yeah
> 
> I mean, they've got a dock near the bunker and that's supposed to be in Kansas which is landlocked, idk what kind of setting to give things sometimes...


End file.
